I got my first safe about 10 years ago. It was a small 10 Stack-On safe I bought used on a local classifieds website. Over the years I filled that safe up however I kept fitting guns inside as I could not afford a bigger safe. I then landed a pretty sweet job working for Sportsmans Warehouse running their website. That job came with a great hookup on gear including my next gun safe, a Yukon Gold 20 gun safe. That one is now close to filling up as well and I am looking at what my next option is. Once I got the Yukon Gold safe I converted my smaller Stack-On safe into an ammo locker. My wife is not anti-gun by any means, but I have only been able to enjoy acquiring a few firearms here and there by toting gun safety at all times. I have promised to teach our children how to use and respect the firearms. I decided long ago that I wanted to keep my ammo locked up as well in a separate location from my firearms so the chances of an accident would hopefully be even less.
The one problem I have always faced in my gun safes is poor lighting. I have done a little bit of research and never found the lighting solution I wanted. There are kits out there but not only are they way overpriced but I just haven’t felt like they work with what I have going on in my gun safes. So because I didn’t see the solutions I wanted I went without lighting in my safes for years. I would use a flashlight or cell phone to see what I was looking for. It was very inconvenient.
One day while at IKEA with my wife I saw there lighting and started to formulate a plan in my head. It took a few months but I finally was able to get it all set up. There are a few different types of lights I used. But I ran all the lights around the door, then put lights under each shelves and ran all the cords to one central light switch box. I then used my Dremel to cut holes that were big enough to hold each switch. After that I squished all the cords in the box, then used some clear silicone adhesive to secure the light switches on the face plate. Although the light switch isn’t as sexy and good looking as I was imagining it in my head. I still think it looks pretty good.
For my ammo safe, I found some string lighting at IKEA for a lot cheaper than at the big box stores. It took me maybe 20 minutes to install since it had tape already on the string lights. The hardest part was stringing the cord outside the safe to be able to plug it in.
I will be adding a new gun safe to my collection here soon as my 20 gun safe is already filled up. I will add a new post as I figure out how I want to add lighting to that safe. Most likely I will do something similar, but will probably try something a little different based on what’s available.
